The mantra...

Shut up.  Be still.  Wait until it is over.

That was the mantra that saved me when I was little.  It is the mantra that has supported me and bound me my entire adult life.  And it is the mantra that I though I was trying to finally escape.

But the past few weeks have me believing that it is my only hope for ... for ... for successful medical care.  Because, you know, for the most part, medical personnel just want to be a slab of meat.  If that is harsh, I believe it is true.  Of course, the nicer way might be to say that they want compliant patients.  That means patients who do what they are told, when they are told, and who fit the mold.  PTSD patients do not fit the mold.  SIGH.

Thinking about needing to take up and embrace that mantra again with regard to medical care is crushing me.

I tried to speak of this with my sister, but did not get all that far.  However, she did say something sweet.  She said that she hoped that, one day, I could see that the way others treat me is not a reflection of me, but of them.  That what happened with the colonoscopy, with the podiatrist, and with the nurse at the neurologist was not about me, but about them.  My mind simply cannot grasp that.  After all, they are responding to me, treating me the way that they did.

I worked so very hard to prepare for the colonoscopy.  I worked out what I needed to feel safe and to minimize triggers.  I was calmer than I usually am, perhaps because I felt more confident going in with having a PLAN.  Only it didn't help.  I was treated awfully.  And I still ended up with new flashbacks.

It was the dismissiveness, the absolute disregard for my person that is the hardest to bear.  Asking for a wheelchair to get to the bathroom and the abject refusal.  Two nurses with a death grip on my upper arms determined to frog-march me there themselves.  Because it was faster?  Because they didn't think that I needed a wheelchair?  They didn't even listen to my realtor, whom is also a nurse, asking for the same thing.  Even after my telling them that I do not like to be touched.  Even after knowing it is in my medical record, the PTSD, the sexual assault, the triggers.  They simply ignored me.

The nurse at the neurologist.  She was also so very dismissive of me.  She was aggressively rude about my meds list and then my answer to why I would need so many.  Her "so?" was really a "so what?" and it crushed me.  I wanted to leave right then and there, to escape what was sure to come.

Yes, the neurologist herself was a Godsend, in no uncertain terms.  And yet I fear going back.  I fear seeing her nurse again.  I fear what she will trigger within me.

My dear friend Mary posted this on her Facebook wall.  To me, it was as if she were posting it for me.    When I shared it with my therapist, she went ape over it.  Because, you see, it is perfect.  This meme really does speak the truth about PTSD anxiety.

I wrapped this meme around me like a piece of armor.  Someone understood.  My therapist got how profound it is to me to have and to be able to point to with others.  I was emboldened a bit.  And yet it all came to nothing.

Because I am nothing.

Shut up.  Be still.  Wait until it is over.